Written by Please pray for this family. This is so unfair.
I am currently in the midst of a life destroying case with the Hamilton CPS. The man who is overseeing this is named Tom Irvine. This man is not looking out for what’s best for my children or myself, I am being treated like a criminal and drug addict even though I have zero history with the law on both accounts. I would like to tell you my story and request please that this man’s job and professionalism be looked into. Or at least my case be handled by someone with a heart and better logical outlook.
In November, my boyfriend of 4 years picked my children up from daycare and took them to his house. This is not unusual because Gabe (my boyfriend) cares for my children 40% of the time my children all call him daddy. An incident happened and Gabe had to punish my youngest son. I’m not condoning what he did and if I was there things would have went differently but I was not there. We do not live together nor do we even live in the same town. Gabe struck my child on his face and left a nasty bruise. My youngest was questioned at school and he said that his daddy did it and Gabe got arrested.
Then CPS decided that that was not enough apparently and refused to allow me to then go home with my own children they were accusing me of knowing of the abuse and turning a blind eye when I had done nothing but cooperate with them the entire day. I had to either have my children stay at my mom’s or have someone sign a protection order and volunteer to be with me every second I was with my children for the next 30 days or my children had to go to foster care.
I was irate, how dare they treat me like I had struck my child myself and/or watched as Gabe did it. Like I said I wasn’t even in the same town when it happened. I reluctantly agreed and found a friend with no life but to supervise me with my own flesh and blood. The 30 day protection order was done December 24th. My friend who signed up for this his name is James and is the only other person in the meeting with the CPS besides myself.
CPS never once said anything to me or him about this continuing beyond the 30 days. I never received any emails or calls or paperwork on anything else, nobody contacted me beyond December. Both of us believed that I had fulfilled my half and it was over on my end. (Why would we think otherwise.)
In January, CPS gave Gabe back his visitation rights with his own biological child as long as he had a friend sign on, to be there to supervise, why would they do this if they thought Gabe such a threat? This also says out loud to the rest of us that the case is slowly starting to be over on his end as well.
In February, I became wicked sick and was unable to care for myself let alone my children. I did not know at the time but I had beginning stages of pneumonia, I have asthma on top of that and could not breath well enough to even make it down my hallway. Gabe has been my only support forever he is not a bad person just doesn’t know what to do with his anger sometimes. He called the cps office many times trying to get them to hook him up with parenting classes, anger management, something so that he could get his family back and nobody would help him.
He looked this stuff up online himself, he called the anger management and enrolled himself and was there every Monday evening doing homework, (Gabe does not do homework). He begged me to give him another chance to let him show me that he can change. I have known Gabe for a long time and I have never seen him like this a shell of the cocky tall standing man that I once knew.
We had a family and life together, bills and assets intertwined and I agreed to let him help me. So in February, when I became so sick Gabe came over to help me just like he would have at any other times. He made supper washed and tucked the kids in bed said prayers and everything was perfect. The next morning he got up early and packed the kids cold lunch and dropped them off at school.
My youngest then proud said to his teacher look my daddy made me cold lunch. The police then came and arrested Gabe and the next day cps came and removed my children. Now if that’s not crazy enough on that day was the first day this Tom Irvine had ever met me before in his life, he comes into my home with another lady planning on giving me a drug test right then and there as they are removing my children.
I was volatile and uncooperative, but what do you expect when you are stripping away my reason for living. The drug test was not done, I would have refused anyway based on the fact that I have zero drug history with the law and this is an abuse case not a drug case. The next day or so he tells me that if I come in and sign papers and agree to treatment that this would all be over faster. “Treatment for what?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer.
I’m not voluntarily going in and saying yes I’m on drugs just because you say it will look good on my behalf like I’m cooperating or something. How does that make sense? That can only screw me further. I will take a pee test and it will be clean there is no reason for treatment. I have never been arrested nor in jail for anything ever and do not appreciate being treated like a criminal from the get go.
They branded me as being non cooperative and forced my children into saying things that they wanted to hear and then they used my own children against me and nothing in my life has been more heartbreaking than that. If you dig enough into any body’s lives your going to find indiscretions they dug up and said terrible things about me. Letters were send to my kids elementary school to daycare and to my son’s physical therapy. I can’t pick them up, I can’t drop them off, I can’t even be seen alone with them.
Any amount of reputation I have created since moving to Montana was destroyed in an instant. Why am I being treated like I abused my children myself. The elementary school told me that if I call them again it’ll be considered harassment. Just two weeks previous to that I was in that school sitting around the table with the principal that counselor another counselor and my daughters teacher, I was a great mom then my daughter was taking leaps and bounds above where she started out everything was going fine and we were all patting ourselves on the back for a job well done and now they are having my kids write their valentine’s cards to grandma like mommy no longer exists. I can’t even breathe this is so unreal.
My lawyer then became super sick and had to have emergency surgery is was unaware of this all in knew is that I could not get a hold of her. Tom knew this, he told my lawyer that he would tell me of our upcoming court date. He then took liberties with my children and myself that I do not think would have happened if my lawyer had not been in the hospital.
He called me in for a meeting and I sat with him for a half hour hashing our case out and he never once said anything about my lawyer being in the hospital nor did he tell me of my upcoming court date. He did ask me please, “He said do not contest this in court because it will only make it worse.” You don’t want me to fight for my children I ask?
That makes no sense mostly because I have never done anything wrong in my life and I feel like this is a great injustice. And my children are my only life without them in have nothing of course I’m going to fight for my reason to breathe. He explains to me how he is 100% sure that they are going to win and that I should just cooperate.
I explain to him once again that it’s not just taking temporary custody from me it’s taking everything from me. If I loose temporary custody I loose my son’s social security, I loose child support, therefore and I’m not exaggerating I loose my home, I loose my car I literally loose everything that I have. Is it your policy to render people homeless? I beg for an alterative the crime does not fit the punishment. Tom will not listen he is so focused on winning this case that it is overlapping what should be common human decency. And by not telling me of my upcoming court date I would have missed my court appearance and CPS would have won by default. That is simply unprofessional.
Since my lawyer is recovering from surgery she requested that we push forward our court date once again. Now my court date is going to be after Easter weekend and I’m devastated. I asked my mom to ask this Tom guy, (because he won’t work with me on anything) if I can have my children for Easter weekend I wish to take them to the Easter egg hunt. I have been begging to let the same person that signed on for the 30 to sign on again to be my supervision for whatever amount of time they decree and he won’t even discuss it.
We ask if this person (James) can sign on for Easter weekend at least and now Tom said no, because they believe that James knew that I was sneaking Gabe in and did not report it — an outright lie. Tom knows that James is my only person who can do this for me and he also knows that James is my only witness that I have that is going to stand up in court saying that CPS never once informed me that they would take away custody if I let Gabe in my house past that 30 day protection order. But most of all Gabe and James are competing for the same woman and have never been in the same place at the same time.
Now that they have eliminated James from the equations I have nobody and they know it. Also it’s Easter weekend do I not have any basic emotional rights. If I myself was not the person to strike my child then why can I not be alone with them they are my children my blood my family and nothing in this world is more important to me. I just want this to be over I just want to celebrate Easter.
My youngest birthday is in two weeks and I’m crying right now just thinking about what kind of crap they are going to pull for that as well. I am not a criminal the only thing I am guilty of is being under informed and I feel like the Hamilton CPS office should then be guilty as well for not doing their job correctly. Please I do not deserve to loose everything I have over something that I did not do. My children just want to come home.
Monique B.
Ravalli County, Montana
I cannot have any sympathy for Monique. You let a man that smacked your child so hard it left bruising on his back into your life!? Making excuses for him like “He Doesn’t know what to do with his anger.” Listen, you better get smart quick.
I was married to an abuser (no children) and I don’t believe for a minute that this was an isolated incident. Court order or not you should have never allowed this man around your children!!!!! He is the reason you no longer have your children with you!
I hate CPS and everything they stand for, but in this situation they are justified. You let a man that abused your children back into your home, life, and worse of all in your kids. I can only pray that you wake up and makes some changes in your life.
I would like to thank you by the way for sharing my post, I randomly came across it just now while searching the Internet for answers on the new roadblock that the cps has placed in my way. I would like to thank you now Giselle for your thoughts and now I would like to share mine….
As someone who was also married to an abuser 10 years ago I know the signs, I know the demeanor, his voice gives me nightmares. Sometimes when you have been abused you tend to see abuse everywhere. I don’t like to monopolize my thoughts with fear. It’s super exhausting and no fun.
Lewis carroll said something like “I cannot go back to yesterday because that is no longer who I am today.” Abuse happened yes, but that does not make you an abuser. We all get frustrated, we all get overwhelmed. Anger, fear it’s the human condition. We all are also capable of love, forgiveness, loyalty, and compassion for the human condition. What kind of mother and or person would I be if I showed my children that one mistake can be inexcusable and no longer worthy of being loved?
I grew up in a cult like Christian home and I’ve got to say I’m no stranger to their practice of conditional love. I find meditation and self reflection helps wash that shit right out.
Update since then… Gabriel and I have been married since may this year that will be 5 years of us being together and not once before in these 5 years has he hit any of my children or his own. So logically thinking if the person hasn’t shown any past indicators that I’m looking at a lifetime of physical abuse I can at least give this a 90% chance that my happiness might be genuine and safe in his hands.
We have joined our forces in this epic battle that Tom Irvine has set before me and still plugging away at so many unreal requests. I’ve done 3 psychological evaluations per Toms request. He wouldn’t let the kids in the home until I completed a month of drug tests twice a week even though I have no history of drugs.
Finally, recently Gabe and I had a breakthrough and found Tom’s wrongdoing in our case neither of us have a substantiated report. Upon request of our files they all the sudden switched our case workers sending dear old Tom to work in another state, he was gone in 2 weeks. Hmmm? I smell fish… so here we are married, abuse free, and fighting the good fight together. Cps hates us .. they should meditate more.
Whether or not you can sympathize with Monique is irrelevant. I am the children’s father, I went to every parent teacher conference, did homework, provided financial support, was present at and contributed to all birthdays and holidays. We did a variety of activities on a regular basis including but not limited to rafting, hiking, dirt biking, campfire picnics, swimming, canoeing, bouldering, sledding, huckleberry picking. The list goes on.
They call me dad because that is how they view me. We can’t get Cps to even put them in counseling. Although they did manage to reintroduce them to their biological fathers (who had abandoned them already). Which was uplifting for the kids for a minute until the fathers stopped contacting them again(as predicted by us and expressed to Cps). They insisted on reunification and offered the fathers custody. They declined. Cps opened up a healed wound and adding salt.
I left a bruise on my son which disappeared in 3 days. I’m a horrible person I’m not trying to dispute this, nor am I saying Cps intervention wasn’t called for. I am saying the way they choose to intervene is unconstitutional, immoral, corrupt, untransparent and ultimately extremely abusive. This experience could of been really helpful, insightful a family bonding experience. It still is a family bonding experience we have a common enemy. The kids want to come home.
So thank you for your unsympathetic and insightful comments. I have a challenge for you. Read 9 years with the Indians by Herman Leaman. Then ask yourself would you take his experience and the life that he fell in love with and identified with for the rest of his life from him in order to stop his abuse. If he had not been so immersed and accepted by the tribe the tribe I would have a different answer to this question. If my love for my child was unshown or nonexistent your comments would be appropriate.
While i do agree that a mother going back to an “abuser” is terrible and unfair to the children, if this is the only incident of abuse, you really can’t consider “Gabe” a threat to those kids.. Can any of us honestly say that our fathers/mothers didn’t lose patience with us for a quick second once in our life? Now, if that happens even once more i do agree steps need to be taken but i think its really unfair to call a man unfit to be around kids he calls his own just because he lost his patience once and struck the child.
Monique and Gabe,
Don’t sweat Giselle,
Not everyone has the strength of character to make it through life’s tragedies as intact, compassionate human beings. Some of us shrivel up inside and can only ever feel pleasure or self worth when they are inflicting pain and misery upon those around them. They become angels of vengeance in their own minds, never realizing they are spiritually dead inside and nothing more than a blight on polite society.
Come to think of it, Giselle has all the makings of a CPS caseworker.
Consider filing to have the case dismissed as a substantiated finding is required for CPS to open a case against you in court and the absence of that finding means your due process rights have been violated. At least if your motion is denied you can appeal it out of dreadful family court.
In any case, I wish you luck in your fight against CPS.
I hope you kick their ass.
Marie R
Gabe, you are a decent man who made a mistake, admitted to it and sought help. That says a lot, to me. You can’t ask for more than that.
The fact that you took children (not born to you) fully into your heart and took on the role as their father also says a lot.
Judgmental people like Giselle need to mind their own business. You don’t need her “sympathy.” No cases are the same and comparing her abuse is ignorant.
I hope your case has been closed, with children home with you and Monique.
Monique, I had tears reading your story. As a mother, I cannot imagine anything worse than my children being taken illegally, without any regard for their feelings or mine.
I pray all is well now for your family.
God bless you all.